The Fall Of The House Of Usher Got Some Help From A Planet Of The Apes Expert
Spoilers for "The Fall of the House of Usher" follow.
You might call Carla Gugino Mike Flanagan's secret weapon. The actor has worked with Flanagan on multiple occasions, from "The Haunting of Hill House" to "Gerald's Game," and beyond. Their latest collaboration is "The Fall of the House of Usher," an Edgar Allan Poe-infused series now streaming on Netflix. In the series, Gugino plays Verna, a mysterious, supernatural woman who has a habit of popping up seemingly everywhere in various forms. And believe it or not, one of those forms is that of a chimpanzee. Sort of.
In the series, the wealthy, corrupt Usher family, which made a fortune in the pharmaceutical industry, finds themselves being picked off one by one in increasingly gruesome ways (inspired by Edgar Allan Poe stories). In an episode inspired by Poe's "Murders in the Rue Morgue," Usher daughter Camille (Kate Siegel) heads to a lab where a group of primates are being experimented on. One of those primates suddenly takes the form of Gugino's character, which means Gugino has a scene where she has to act like a chimp. It sounds almost comical but it ends up being highly disturbing and creepy.
To channel her inner chimpanzee, Gugino got some help from someone who knows a thing or two about playing primates — Terry Notary.
Not a subtle experience
While Andy Serkis might arguably be one of the most well-known actors specializing in performance capture, he's equally matched by Terry Notary. Notary has performed motion capture work for "Avatar," "The Adventures of Tintin," "The Hobbit" trilogy, "Kong: Skull Island," and, most notably, the "Planet of the Apes" reboot trilogy, where he played Rocket. Notary also plays the apes glimpsed in "House of Usher," except for a moment when one of them becomes Carla Gugino's character.
When it came to playing that scene, Gugino got some coaching from Notary, per Netflix. As Gugino tells it, learning to play an ape was "not a subtle experience." But the scene really came together thanks to both Notary and co-star Kate Siegel. "Seeing how [Kate] was responding to the behavior allowed me to know that we were getting to where we needed to go with it," Gugino said. She also added that her ape character goes "through so much pain."
Again: the scene could've turned out to be very silly, but Gugino plays it perfectly, channeling an animal in a feoricious, unsettling way. See for yourself by checking out "The Fall of the House of Usher," now streaming on Netflix.